"Ah, yet well I know that were a woman possible as I am possible
then marriage would be possible--
Like SHE in her lonely alien gaud waiting her Egyptian lover
so I wait--bereft of 2,000 years and the bath of life."
-Gregory Corso, "Marriage"


To Whom It May Concern:

Three years ago I was supposed to marry
for a third time, but disease came
& courts closed and the house of cards
began shaking: aces are thin.

Two years ago it ended savagely
as I was packing my things for Dublin,
looking up how to get the cat on the plane,
when she texted: scalpels are thin, too.

I began drinking. Not like the books say -
the lonely poet sipping sherry in a turret,
in a black cape with a quill in hand -
no, ugly cups of scotch at eight in the morning.

The whisky brought my grandfather's body
from the past and forced it onto me -
I stopped recognizing myself
in the poisoned mirror. I sold the house.

I bought a new place, in an artist's neighborhood,
I went for long walks, I purged some bad blood.
But the heart ran down like a forgotten watch.
I felt tarnished. I felt like I died years ago.

Now whenever a poem slips out of me,
I am dismayed. The world around me
reflects endlessly a cascading loneliness,
a disappointment, an uncertainty,

& it's all I can talk about because looking in,
breaking the lacre, is unbearable most of the time.
Clouds sing and perish in the new night;
when day comes, it's sodden, sealed, sunless.

I don't know where else to go with this letter,
so I will scrawl my fingers across the clatter
& go lay down. The street is spotted:
It's starting to rain.

v/r, E-